I removed MaxMySpeed.com software from my laptop -- and it runs faster

I wrote recently about the trials and tribulations I was having with that highly publicized software by MaxMySpeed.com. Supposedly they promised to speed up your computer. They invited you to have your competer checked by their software for free -- and many people, I bet, thought that the free analysis would result in a faster computer.

It doesn't.

Here is what I wrote about my poor experience with this company. Click here to read the story.

The software cost me a total of $44. It included a second software I did not order but that was billed to me anyway. When I complained -- and DID NOT download the software -- the company promised to reimburse me the $14. They never did.

Here's the company's response to my column. Click here to read the response.

The scan they ran claimed I had 90 registry errors. Wow. My virus software told me that. Still, once it told me about the errors, and then said I had to buy the software to fix the problem, I decided to test the software.

It doesn't work. It really stinks.

The first thing it does is take care of itself. It inserts it in your startup file so that the software automatically runs in your memory when you start up your computer. That slows the system down, of course.

Even when I removed it from my startup file, it kept reinserting itself.

I ran the software several times and first cleared up the errors the "free" run claimed were slowing my system down.

Sure enough the registry problems RETURNED. More than 80 registry errors within two days. I ran it again. Presumably cleaned up the errors. And sure enough, they returned.

So what exactly does the software do?

It didn't speed my computer up.

Don't buy it. In my opinion, it doesn't work.

MaxMySpeed.com responds to my criticism of their terrible software. Don't Buy It recommendation!

HERE IS THE RESPONSE FROM CYBER DEFENDER SUPPORT FOR MY COLUMN criticizing MaxMySpeed.com, which I think STINKS! They tried to post it as a COMMENT but comments are limited tounder 4,200 or so characters including spaces. So I will post their comment here, even though my recommendation is to NOT subscribe to their service. They misled me into believing the service was free and THEN I could purchase it. They scanned my system and then insisted I purchase to repair. When I did that, I discovered that they system had me purchase a SECOND Software which I did not want and I DID NOT DOWNLOAD. And that billing was promised to be reversed and it never was.


AND WORSE. when I downloaded and ran the SCAN AGAIN, after I ran it through their web site, my system did NOT run faster despite the software identify many registry errors and correcting them.

-- Ray Hanania
(Here is their email to me in response):

Dear Customer, You recently requested assistance from our Support Center. Below is a summary of your original request, as well as our response.

If this resolution is not to your satisfaction, you may reply to this email within the next 7 days to reopen the case.

Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you. Regards, CyberDefender Support

Dear Mr. Hanania, we attempted to post this message as a reply to your recent blog, however it would appear our responses continue to be deleted. We are therefore opting to reply via email until a public response is posted.

On behalf of CyberDefender Corporation, we’d like to thank you for your personal appraisal of our company and brands. We always appreciate hearing feedback from real individuals like you, and not necessarily from those who might have a degree in a computer technology-related field, or something of the like. It is a refreshing change of pace to engage in discourse with an experienced professional like yourself, and a comedian and satirist no less.

However, we can see from what you posted that you have either been misinformed, or are simply confused as to the nature of our company, products, and services, and perhaps the industry altogether as a whole. It’s our sincere hope that we might enlighten you with facts, if only to prevent similar occurrences from arising in the future. Unfortunately, several of your points must be contested, as they have basis neither in truth nor reality, and the content ultimately demonstrates an article of guesswork and hypothesis.

You begin by stating that “like all sleazy sales people,” CyberDefender has employed a “catch” to our Registry Cleaner’s free scan. This leads us to believe that you are under the impression that our offering a free, limited trial version of the software is deceptive, or “sleazy” in some fashion. Never in our advertisements do we state that the service is free. We establish quite clearly that the initial diagnoses are free. That is why we state therein “…get your free diagnosis,” and not “…get your free software.” This is the nature of the majority of free, limited trial versions of computer software. One need only browse a website like Cnet’s Download.com to understand that an overwhelming amount of the products they offer consumers for download are only “free to try,” yet ultimately cost money to unlock the full capabilities of a given program. A popularized term for such software is “demo,” meaning the software is only a demonstrative version, and not a fully operational version.

You also state that visiting MaxMySpeed.com prompts a “sleazy sales pitch” at potential customers, and declare that a site which utilizes automatically playing media such as audio and video “means there is trouble a brewing.” This statement struck us as most bizarre, not due to the increasing presence of “sleaze” in your article, but since it is not at all peculiar for websites in this day and age to feature media which plays automatically, especially when it comes to advertising. Several extremely popular, high-traffic websites such as Youtube.com and MySpace.com have each likewise employed the same method, but the list of entities which feature automatically-playing media numbers in the thousands to tens-of-thousands, and perhaps even beyond.

It must be noted that as we were writing this message, we downloaded and installed a fresh copy our Registry Cleaner software in hopes of mimicking your own tests. The initial scan of which took about a minute. Now, based on your claim that the “’free’ scan takes a long time,” it would seem that your PC may be an ideal candidate for optimization services. But regardless, a more valid concern than what you have expressed would be if the registry cleaning software performed its scans in an extraordinarily short period of time. Windows registries are dynamic, sir, and will be different from person-to-person. This depends not only on the registry size, status and condition, but the various hardware components of an individuals’ computer, both factoring into each person who running a scan more than likely experiencing one either shorter in length or longer in length than the next.

You mention that “registry errors do not necessarily slow your system down.” With this, we whole-heartily agree. However, for the sake of your argument, it might have been best to try and research some absolutes instead of indefinites, since your pertinent statements thereafter can only be partially true - certainly something a respected journalist would desire to steer clear of, that realm of publishing half-truths without genuinely researching that which he desires to advocate against.

We are a bit surprised with your distaste of CyberDefender products, and perceived preference of Norton-Symantec. The perceived preference comes from your admission of using Norton software on your computer. The surprise comes from the fact that CyberDefender’s own Senior Vice President of Product Development Sarah Hicks and Vice President of Engineering and Threat Research Brian Yoder are both executive alumni of Norton-Symantec. Sarah Hicks is the former Vice President of Product Management for Symantec, where she spent over 11 years contributing to and leading the teams responsible for developing Norton AntiVirus, Norton SystemWorks, Norton Internet Security, and N360, and Brian Yoder functioned as Senior Software Designer for Norton/Symantec, serving on the development team responsible for Norton Utilities, Norton Commander, and Norton Desktop. Moreover, he was the Director of Product Development and Architect at Earthlink, Inc., working with the vastly popular ISP for four years prior to joining CyberDefender. These, as well as the rest of our executive board, all have an extensively proven track-record in the industry, and have worked extremely hard to make that so. If this were not the case, CyberDefender would not have brought them on board. If they did not see CyberDefender as a legitimate, serious player in the world of PC-optimization, they would not have come aboard. These are literally the very same minds which brought you the very anti-virus and PC optimization software you are using today.


We are a bit surprised with your distaste of CyberDefender products, and perceived preference of Norton-Symantec. The perceived preference comes from your admission of using Norton software on your computer. The surprise comes from the fact that CyberDefender’s own Senior Vice President of Product Development Sarah Hicks and Vice President of Engineering and Threat Research Brian Yoder are both executive alumni of Norton-Symantec. Sarah Hicks is the former Vice President of Product Management for Symantec, where she spent over 11 years contributing to and leading the teams responsible for developing Norton AntiVirus, Norton SystemWorks, Norton Internet Security, and N360, and Brian Yoder functioned as Senior Software Designer for Norton/Symantec, serving on the development team responsible for Norton Utilities, Norton Commander, and Norton Desktop. Moreover, he was the Director of Product Development and Architect at Earthlink, Inc., working with the vastly popular ISP for four years prior to joining CyberDefender. These, as well as the rest of our executive board, all have an extensively proven track-record in the industry, and have worked extremely hard to make that so. If this were not the case, CyberDefender would not have brought them on board. If they did not see CyberDefender as a legitimate, serious player in the world of PC-optimization, they would not have come aboard. These are literally the very same minds which brought you the very anti-virus and PC optimization software you are using today.

As per your claims of padding the billing charge, it would seem you are referring to our website’s checkout page. When a customer is interested in purchasing products or services directly through our online medium, we do display a purchase price which reflects the total cost of the desired item, plus that of complementary software we feel would benefit the consumer has desired to purchase. No consumer is forced to purchase these suggested items, and all it takes is a simple un-checking of a checkbox to opt out. Furthermore, we only ever recommend one software product in this fashion and a backup CD copy of their desired software, meaning there are only two checkboxes involved in these projected totals. This, like aforementioned concepts, is nothing new, nor is it anything that CyberDefender alone employs. All that is demonstrated by your inclusion of encouraged marketing and its transparently implied maliciousness/unethical behavior is a lack of well-rounded experience in online ordering, and perhaps a touch of worldly naïveté. Another testament to this is your claim that CyberDefender wants “to sell you their own virus scan” upon checkout. This is an outright fabrication, as CyberDefender has provided our anti-virus services absolutely free of charge ever since the advent of CyberDefenderFREE 2.0 in 2007.

Should an individual accidentally purchase extra items at checkout, we will fully refund the cost of those extra items.

Your closing statements include some final points. First, that “In the end, my laptop ran just as fast and slow as it always does.” If that is the case, and you honestly see no improvement in your PC within 30 days from purchase, we are more than happy to supply you with a full refund in accordance with our satisfaction guarantee. This guarantee is included on the checkout page of every software purchase on our site.

Secondly, you state that “The registry scan didn't do anything.” We certainly hope you weren’t under the impression that simply scanning your registry would enhance the performance of your computer, as that is not how the product, or any registry cleaner, is designed to work. Or that even cleaning your registry once for the purpose of testing bring about immediate and everlasting flawlessness in your PC. It is the active and regular maintenance of Windows Registry which warrants to most beneficial, noticeable, and lasting results. This is reflected throughout our site, most pertinently on our Registry Cleaner’s product page and CyberDefender.com’s Frequently Asked Questions Knowledge Base. It is also common knowledge in the world of registry cleaning.

Thirdly, you postulate that “All those testimonials from the happy girl and happy guy voices on the commercials are paid, and don't represent real consumers.” All of our customer testimonials, whether in television advertising, or online consumer websites, represent real consumers in absolute. We implore any interested in truth to visit our profile at the Better Business Bureau’s Consumer Protection website Trustlink.com (http://trustlink.org/Reviews/CyberDefender-205958423), whence they may read legitimate reviews from legitimate CyberDefender users. Accusations attempting to implicate otherwise are baseless and serve only to provide libel in defamation attempts.

Mr. Hanania, we maintain upwards of 8-million active subscribers, up 3-million from the previous year. We understand it might be difficult for someone of your stature to relate to such numbers, but it should be no surprise that some of these nigh 8-million individuals have decided to post positive feedback of a product and service they use and appreciate. If one still cannot fully grasp this, we suspect a dose of humility will help clear the mind.

You close by stating “If you promise a free scan give people the free service.” We apologize, but that simply is not an economical or sensible business practice. We offer a free computer diagnosis; we provide a free computer diagnosis. We offer a service; we sell a service. This shouldn’t be alarming in the least, as it has been acceptable business practice for well over 100 years in this country (providing/selling what is offered as is offered). America wasn’t built on businesses doling out free products, but on a functional business-to-consumer relationship, providing the general public with products or services they wish to purchase under their own accord.

Thank you,
CyberDefender